


if you don't say it

by AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), gabriel gets fucking punched in the face, gay idiots, idiot gays, in which i am aziraphale and gabriel is unaffirming churches, slaps fic, this baby can fit so much self projection in it, vague allusions to drinking problems, what else do i tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs/pseuds/AllThisAndLoveTooWillRuinUs
Summary: after aziraphale helps crowley sober up post spanish inquisition, gabriel puts a "blessing" on aziraphale that prevents him from saying how he feels about crowley. once the armageddidn't is over, aziraphale tries to find other ways to get the message across. technically canon compliant.





	if you don't say it

**Author's Note:**

> as always thank you thank you thank you to my best friend, beta, and partner in crime (amongst other things) @thathydrokinetic

After the end of the world, after the Ritz, after the nightingale sang, there was the sidewalk. There was Crowley and there was Aziraphale, on the sidewalk, outside, wondering what precisely came next. Crowley leaned against a streetlamp, legs spread, hands in his pockets, a snarky- or was it soft? Hard to tell with Crowley- grin on his face. It was that look, that pose, that scene he’d played out time and time before, the one that said _“What’s next, darling?”_ and reminded Aziraphale oh so painfully that if he were to grab Crowley’s hand and make a break for the edge of the universe, Crowley would gladly follow. 

That look, that stance, had always done something to Aziraphale. To be precise, _this_ thing, this ‘stomach dropping out’, _‘_ skin made of infinities of infinitesimal butterflies’, ‘roaring engine for a heart’, thing. Aziraphale could feel his dumb, foolish grin on his face, could feel the glow in his eyes, betraying him, laying everything out on the ground for Crowley to see. 

Aziraphale knew, of course, that he looked at Crowley like he’s the most magnificent thing in the universe, like he thought his every move was extraordinary, like he wanted nothing more complex than to continue on breathing the same air as this demon, but it’s not exactly something he could help, now wasit? Not when Crowley looked at him like _that_ , in that way _he_ did, like he’d happened upon a gem called Aziraphale, like they’re in on a secret that nobody else in the whole of the universe knows, like he could live and die with Aziraphale and never spend a second bored. Which is ridiculous, because he’s Crowley and he’s so above it all, so clever, so pointedly over it, so why on earth would he stop to treasure an angel like him?

They stood there staring for far too long, and the energy in the air around them wasfar too charged. Something hadto give. Crowley tilted his head in question.

Because of course, it's always a question for Crowley. Aziraphale knew, he always had, that he and Crowley werein love with each other. But Crowley didn't.

It wasn’t his fault. Crowley had done every last thing he could to make his feelings clear, and Aziraphale has always pointedly "not noticed" or politely refused. 

It had been the only option at the time. But now, with their rather dramatic points made to their respective bosses with the whole "surviving holy water and flames" business, Armageddon averted, Adam's aura over them, they were home safe, weren't they? Perhaps it was time to. . . try again. 

"Angel." Crowley stepped closer. "Anybody in there?"

He'd been lost in his head too long. He offered a shaky smile. "Yes, sorry, just thinking."

"Oh good, I was worried the holy water had messed you up after all. Maybe given you one of those human things that happen to their head, what's it called, a concerto? Concurrent?"

"A concussion, dear, and no, I'm just fine. My apologies for zoning out like that on you."

"No bother. What were you thinking about?"

Aziraphale breathed in, then out, looking around at the street, the people passing by. Good a place as any, he supposed. _Here goes nothing,_ he thought _._

"Nothing much dear, just thinking about how much I -" And then stopped, his hand flying over his mouth of its own accord.

_Damn_ , he thought, _still there, then_.

Crowley raised his eyebrows. He had seen this before, thousands of years ago, but he never knew what it meant. Aziraphale never told him. Not because he didn’t want to- but because he couldn't, physically.

  
  


**_Year of Our Lord 1490_ **

The first time he had tried to tell Crowley he loved him was during the Spanish Inquisition. He hadn't seen Crowley for over a week, which wasn't unprecedented, but more and more often those days it was uncommon. When Aziraphale finally found him, he was drunk on the side of the road. 

"Have you seen it?" he asked, hands shaking, voice shaking.

Aziraphale shook his head.

"It's - it's _awful_ , angel. The ways they've come up with to hurt people. . ." Crowley trailed off for a moment, looking off in the distance, in the direction, Aziraphale realized, of Spain. "And they think it was me."

"Who?"

"The big man downstairs. The great naughtiness. My bosses."

"Oh."

"Gave me a bloody commendation. _'Great work',_ they said. As if that's - as if I would have -"

Aziraphale took Crowley's chin with his fingers and gently turned his face towards his own, looking him in the eyes. "Hey," he said softly. "How long have you been drinking?"

Crowley blinked, pupils eerily large against the yellow irises. "Since I saw."

"Which was when?"

"Bout a week ago."

Aziraphale sighed. "Come on, Crowley, let's get you home."

He gently helped him off the ground and held him up as he miracled them back to Crowley’s. He let Crowley sleep it off for a while, then gave him a bath, got some food in him. It took him a while to sober up. Crowley found it more difficult than usual, after having been out of practice for so long, but slowly and surely, they got there. 

When Aziraphale woke the next morning, there was a note in the place where Crowley had slept, reading _'Went home to check up on things. Figure I owe you dinner.'_ Below, he'd left a time and place to meet.

Aziraphale would have liked to see Crowley in the morning, keep an eye on him, but it was good that Crowley had gotten up and gone to check on things all by himself. He went about his day as usual, thinking about what it must be to exist as a demon who broke down at the Spanish Inquisition. 

They met and had a lovely dinner, just as they always did. Crowley looked terribly lovely, life seeping back into his skin, sun hitting his eyes, the same color of its setting rays filtered in through the window. Even back then, Aziraphale had known he'd loved him. It was never the sort of thing he could bring himself to voice, not quite brave enough yet, but every encounter he could feel himself getting closer and he was loving the slow fall, his - how had Crowley put it? - saunter downward. He was loving slowly settling into loving Crowley, every excruciating second of the waiting.

After dinner, they stood outside on the street and Crowley coughed awkwardly. 

"I - suppose I should thank you," Crowley said, not quite meeting Aziraphale's eyes.

"I thought you just did," Aziraphale said with a smile, gesturing back towards the restaurant.

Crowley shook his head. "No, I mean, properly thank you. It doesn't count if you don't say it. So, thank you, Aziraphale. Thank you for taking care of me."

Aziraphale felt something swelling in his chest, a slow saunter downward. "You're quite welcome, my dear. But you needn't thank me. That's simply what you do when you l-" suddenly, he was cut off by his hand flying up to cover his own mouth, in an odd sort of spasm. 

He furrowed his brow but removed the hand and continued on, "Sorry, don't know what came over me, what I'm trying to say Crowley is that I lo-" it happened again, his hand moving like a puppet’s on a string. Aziraphale felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. 

Crowley frowned. "Aziraphale, are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I'm just trying to tell you that I l-" Yet again, his hand came up to stop his words. Over Crowley's shoulder, Aziraphale finally saw him - Gabriel. Glaring. 

"I - I'm sorry my dear, would you excuse me? I've some uh, angel business it seems I must attend to." 

Crowley nodded and said, "No trouble, I'll see you soon?" 

Aziraphale could hear the worry in Crowley's voice, but all he could do was nod and walk in a dreading sort of daze over to where Gabriel was standing. 

Gabriel grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and led him off to an alley where they could talk more privately.

" _Look_ what you've done!" Gabriel started, clenching his fist and swinging it up terribly close to Aziraphale's face, barely stopping himself. 

"Look what I - _what?_ What have I done?"

"Don't be an idiot, Aziraphale. I know it comes naturally to you but if you could use that body's brain for just _two seconds_ , if that's not too much to ask, you would think twice before playing dumb with me."

"I - I'm sorry but I really don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you have those - _feelings,_ or whatever, and that was, frankly, disgusting, but technically permissible up until now. Now it's quite apparent that _this,_ this _demon -"_ Gabriel spat the word, "- is more important to you than your job, so I had to put a stop to it."

Aziraphale groaned. "Okay, alright, I admit it, maybe Crowley and I are on . . . friendly terms, but really, we've been the only two immortals on the earth for 6000 years. I'm a being of _love_ , surely you'd have expected that?"

"You're a being of incompetence is what you are. We had a demon, quite a successful one at that, the _serpent of Eden,_ out of commission for an entire week, possibly indefinitely, and what did you do? You fixed him! You fixed a demon! What were you even thinking?"

"I don't think I can take credit for any fixing, he fixed himself, I just helped him, because I'm an _angel_ and that's what I _do_ , I help people."

"Not demons, you don't. This has to stop. No more meetings you think are discrete or dinners that are supposed to be subtle, no more staring at him like that, he's going to see that you so _obviously_ have a weakness for him and exploit it."

"Crowley would _never -_ "

"He's a demon. Of course he would."

"You can't just -"

"Yes, I can. This is an order. Stay away from the demon. And in case you see fit to disobey my order, I've made some Arrangements." Gabriel laughed. "Isn't that what you two used to call your little deal? The Arrangement? Anyhow, go on, try to tell me how you feel about the demon."

"Not that it's any of your business, but I lo-" his hand covered his mouth. 

Gabriel smiled. "Good, yes. That should do it. Well, I'm off. Care to thank me? For the uh -” Gabriel’s smile twisted into something altogether menacing, predatory. “Well, we’ll call it a blessing, why don’t we?"

Aziraphale stood silent, mutinous.

Gabriel shrugged. "Very well, then." And with that, he left. 

Slowly, Aziraphale held his head with his hands and sunk down to the ground. 

All that time he'd spent pining and waiting, taking his time to fall for Crowley, it was never going to happen. It couldn't. He had been waiting for nothing, leading Crowley on towards nothing. What had he even been thinking? That heaven was going to be fine with it? Turn a blind eye? Heaven had many, many, eyes, but not a single one was blind. Not to what Aziraphale was doing. Not to what he felt. Everyone could see.

Crowley could probably see too, but he would never be sure. What was it he'd said earlier? _It doesn't count if you don't say it._ And now Aziraphale never could. Even if he found a way, heaven would see. Heaven would tear them apart. Heaven had no blind eyes. 

He rose from the ground, shook the dust off himself, and gave a wave to heaven above. Then he went forth and did his damndest to follow Gabriel's instructions: stay far away from Crowley. It would only make things worse for the both of them.

Eventually, of course, he failed. It got to the point where he stopped even trying to avoid Crowley altogether. There was the church, the books, back in the blitz, where Crowley came to save him despite it all, and the incident with the holy water, where he gave into his love so blatantly he kept expecting Gabriel to turn up and haul him off. 

Crowley had asked him then, "Can I drop you anywhere?" 

Aziraphale was weak, _so weak_ for Crowley, Gabriel was right about that, so he made promises he couldn't keep, about picnics and the Ritz. He spoke in tongues of fantasy.

_Anywhere_ , Crowley had said, and Aziraphale's heart broke clean in two. He should have said " _No_ ", but lying just wasn't in his nature, so instead he said, _"not yet"._ He said _"You move too fast for me,"_ which was so close to a confession that he felt his hand spasm at his side, but Gabriel let it pass.

It was a cruel sort of thing, to say _"not yet"_ to something he knew could never happen, to give Crowley that false hope, but, well, he never was a very good angel, was he? 

  


**_Present Day_ **

Now, after the almost-armageddon, he had no resignation left in him. He'd trained it out of himself after 12 years of pitting himself against the Great Plan, the most inevitable thing to fight against, the most hopeless battle. And they'd won, hadn't they? Suddenly, what used to fill him with that old familiar hopelessness filled him with rage, with determination. He had broken the end of all things. He could break a blessing from one shithead of an angel.

When he looked up, Crowley was still looking at him with concern. Aziraphale smiled. "Sorry my dear, old tic I thought I'd gotten rid of eons ago. Perhaps I'll be rid of it soon. Care to come home with me?"

Crowley blinked in wonder, the same way he had way back on that street all those years ago, like Aziraphale was the savior, not that carpenter from Bethlehem with his crown of thorns.

Crowley nodded and let Aziraphale take him home. 

  


For centuries, Aziraphale had purposely been restraining his displays of affection as much as possible. He’s certain, of course, that with his sheer inability to hide the way he looked at Crowley or his general weak spot for the demon, that it came across more as mixed signals, but at least signals that were mixed enough not to encourage action upon. Aziraphale had purposely held himself back enough to keep Crowley unsure. Now, if he wanted Crowley to be sure of how he felt, Aziraphale thought he ought to only need to stop restraining himself.

So it was of strategy, not recklessness, that Aziraphale leaned his head on Crowley’s shoulder and left his hand to rest on his Crowley’s upper thigh as they sat on his couch with their wine. That he ran his hands through Crowley’s hair and traced circles with his fingers on the back of Crowley’s neck. And he spent half an hour rambling about which century Crowley looked the best during right in front of his face. It certainly felt like recklessness, the release of this chaotic, raw emotion, inserting itself unpredictably into every moment. But this was not an escape, it was a conscious release, and it was all the more thrilling for it. 

He made a big show of sobering up so that Crowley would know it was not the wine talking when he said he was heading off to bed, and would Crowley care to join him?

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Crowley nearly fell off the couch.

“I said,” Aziraphale said, smiling, “I’m going to bed. Would you care to join me?”

There was an extremely long moment where Crowley did not say anything, and Aziraphale did not say anything, and Aziraphale began to think perhaps he’d been wrong about the whole thing for about 6000 years and now he’d come on rather strong to his poor unsuspecting friend who did not care for such advances when finally Crowley managed a low, utterly suspicious, “Okay.”

Aziraphale smiled and nodded, “Excellent,” he started off towards the bedroom, pulling clothes out of a drawer miraculously filled with bedclothes Crowley’s size. He handed them to Crowley and dipped into the bathroom to change himself. Hopefully, they would eventually get to the point where that was unnecessary, but if any pair could be said to take it slow, it was them. 

When Aziraphale came back out of the bathroom, he saw Crowley awkwardly standing at the foot of the bed, running his fingers along the quilting. He started when Aziraphale opened the door.

“Sorry, but you did mean,” and here, Crowley blushed, “ _in_ the bed? It just wasn’t clear, I’m fine with the couch.”

“Nonsense, I wouldn’t put you out on the couch when it’s a perfectly large enough bed. Besides, I think we’re quite close enough that we can share some covers, don’t you?” Aziraphale calculated his voice to ensure that the question sounded as loaded as possible.

Crowley, apparently, could only nod, as words had become a terribly difficult affair.

Together, they crawled between the sheets and laid down on their separate sides of the bed. 

Aziraphale had read this book before. He knew how this scene was supposed to go. He knew what to do. 

He let them lay there in a tense silence for a few minutes, then cautiously, asked, "Would you mind if I got a bit closer? It's a bit cold." It wasn't cold. In fact, it was kind of hot. But that was all the better for Getting The Message Across.

When Crowley said "Sure," his voice cracked, but Aziraphale took it as a good sign. He moved in closer, tucked his head on Crowley's shoulder, his stomach against Crowley’s side and wrapped his arm around Crowley’s waist. 

After a pause, Crowley moved his arm around Aziraphale's shoulder, so that his hand fell on his back, right on his shoulder blade.

Aziraphale smiled against Crowley's neck and said good night. 

"Good night," Crowley whispered into Aziraphale's head, as he slowly began tracing circles on his back, gently, like he didn't want Aziraphale to notice, like this was the worst temptation he'd yielded to yet.

  
  


The next morning, Aziraphale woke up smiling. 

Crowley was still there, tangled up with him, in the soft bedclothes Aziraphale had miracled for him. He was still asleep, face scrunched up like he had a bone to pick even in his sleep, a restless rebel who had a smile for only one angel, and these days, an antichrist, in the shape of a small boy.

Slowly, Aziraphale disentangled himself from Crowley's limbs and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. 

  
  


Crowley woke up alone. This was probably a good thing, as he needed a moment to collect himself. 

He was in Aziraphale’s bed. Where he had slept. For the whole night. With Aziraphale. In the same bed. At the same time. His head had been on Crowley’s _shoulder_. 

Crowley groaned. He had promised himself, all those years ago, back in Soho, 1967, to let Aziraphale set the pace. “ _You go too fast for me_ ,” Aziraphale had said, and Crowley had heard. So he’d made sure, always after that, that it was Aziraphale at the wheel, Aziraphale’s foot on the pedal, (metaphorically, of course. Crowley wasn’t even sure Aziraphale _could_ drive). But this metaphor car, Crowley imagined it as the Bentley, had gone from lazy Sunday drive to careening off the road, across a cliff, over a hundred miles an hour, over the course of about two days.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want it; he could still feel Aziraphale’s hand on his thigh, and his nose cold on the crook of his neck, smell his hair. He blushed at the memories, even alone in the room. It wasn’t that he didn’t want it, it was that he didn’t understand how they’d gotten here, and he wasn’t prone to trust it. The only explanation for the radical change he could fathom was that the near-death, near-end-of-all-things experience had lead Aziraphale to be brash, to start touching Crowley without thinking.

There was, Crowley thought, nothing he would not sacrifice for Aziraphale, nothing he wouldn’t give him. Except this. He could not be a distraction for Aziraphale, not a game to play now that they were done playing chess with heaven and hell, Armageddon and Agnes Nutter. It would shatter him, utterly and completely. 

Aziraphale was always so careful, until he wasn’t. He was patiently guarding the gate, until he was giving away the flaming sword. He was faithfully in England, until he got bored and started craving crepes, during the middle of the French _fucking_ revolution. He was so excruciatingly slow with Crowley, to the point where Crowley began to doubt he felt the same at all, until he was inviting him into his bed. 

Crowley ran his hands through his hair. Yes, he knew what this was, and he could not give his Angel what he wanted. Not this time. Because if he let this happen, later when Aziraphale realized he’d made a mistake, cornered by God or the executioner (was that redundant?), Crowley would not be around to come save him, because he’d be the broken glass of a bottle in the gutter of a street, he’d be too far gone, too wrecked to save Aziraphale like he was supposed to. 

Slowly, Crowley climbed out of bed. He miracled himself into some clean clothes and stumbled into the kitchen, fighting against the lights.

Aziraphale was already up, fixing pancakes with little berries in them and brewing a pot of coffee. He was still in his pajamas. Something inside of Crowley ached.

Aziraphale smiled, saying “Morning, dear” as if this was every morning. As if they’d always had this. As if they always could. 

“Morning,” Crowley grumbled, leaning against the wall, just at the edge of the kitchen. He couldn’t help but watch Aziraphale, in the morning light streaming in from the window. Perhaps it was the aftereffects of falling, but he always did have a habit of punishing himself. 

“I was thinking we could have a lazy day today,” Aziraphale said, flipping over a pancake. “After 11 years of fighting off the Great Plan, I figure we deserve a break. We could stay in, watch movies on the couch.”

Crowley eyeballed the couch warily. He remembered what happened on that couch yesterday and if it were to repeat itself, he was pretty certain he would violently implode before they’d even gotten to the good part of whatever movie they were watching. But he looked back at Aziraphale, and he looked so hopeful, letting the pancakes overcook on the skillet as he watched Crowley for his reaction. Call Crowley an idiot, call him a glutton for punishment, call him anything you like (except in love, please, if you’ve any mercy at all, don’t call him that) but he nodded, and Aziraphale’s face lit up. 

“Excellent,” Aziraphale continued. “I’ll arrange for take-out, you pick some movies, yeah?”

“Angel, do I look like someone who knows about movies?”

Aziraphale laughed with affection. “Not terribly, no, but it’s not like I know too many either. Always been more of a theater person, myself. Perhaps you could just look up some that humans like? Seems like a good day to celebrate humanity.”

Crowley nodded and started looking up which movies humans liked, while absently taking a plate of pancakes and filling a mug with coffee, taking a seat at Aziraphale’s breakfast table. Odd that it had two chairs. Come to think of it, he didn’t think it had the night before. Crowley blushed to think that maybe Aziraphale had miracled him up a chair at his breakfast table. It was a simple, obvious thing, but those were always the things that made Crowley lose his mind. 

At the internet’s instruction, they end up watching a movie about two men breaking out of prison, one about a boy in space with a weapon that reminded Crowley of Aziraphale’s flaming sword except it was green, a few about superheroes, one about a boy skipping school, and finally one about a princess and her pirate lover who kept being dead and then not dead again.

At first, he didn’t like that last one much; he didn’t like watching the blonde girl boss the farm boy around. 

Crowley said, “Can we pick another movie, maybe? The ones with the wizard boy?”  


Aziraphale said, “Hush, I’ve seen this one before, it gets better.”

The narrator, in the movie, said, “That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”

Crowley’s heart said, “ _Oh._ ”

Crowley’s mind said, _“That is something we recognize. That is something we’ve been before.”_

Crowley’s lungs said, _“Remember the bastille? Remember the church? Remember only hours ago, when you yielded to this couch, the most dangerous place of all of these? Remember all the times you’ve formed the air we breathe for you into a soft exhale in the shape of ‘as you wish’?”_

After that moment, the film started to grow on Crowley, but it was embarrassing, the way he kept laughing at the frankly dumb comedy and smiling at the moments when the princess got to see her pirate boy. By the time they’d reached the fire swamp, Crowley had gotten up to put on his sunglasses, sheerly so Aziraphale would not be able to see how closely he was paying attention. 

Aziraphale had put his head on Crowley’s lap when he’d sat back down, wrapped up in a blanket like he might wrap his wings around himself. The princess was on screen now, talking about when she thought the pirate boy was dead, how it destroyed her. It made Crowley think of a burning bookshop, a bar at the end of the world. Without instruction from is mind, his hand moved to gently run his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. He was here. He was alive. 

They watched as the pirate boy got tortured, and the giant and the Spaniard found each other, the former nursing the other back to health after he’d drunk himself half to death, and Crowley blushed. They watched as the witch and the miracle man brought the pirate boy back to life and he went off to storm the castle with the giant and the Spaniard. The Spaniard got to stab the six-fingered man and they saved the princess and escaped from the evil prince and Crowley was Only Casually Interested and Definitely Not Crying A Little. 

At the end of it, the narrator, who had been a grandfather reading to his sick grandson, got up to leave, having finished with the book. The grandson asked if perhaps the grandfather could come back and read the story again tomorrow, and the grandfather said “as you wish,” meaning, of course, “I love you.”

It was all terribly sweet and Crowley did not talk for a while afterwards for reasons that certainly did not involve a lump in his throat. With stiff bones, Aziraphale rose from the couch and started picking up empty boxes of takeout they had burned through over the course of the day. By this point, they were pushing 11 o’ clock. 

Aziraphale smiled in a sort of way that knew Crowley was choked up, and knew that Crowley knew that he knew he was choked up, but was not going to say anything. “I’m going to grab myself a glass of milk before bed, do you want anything, dear?”

“If -” Crowley’s voice croaked. Aziraphale, graciously, pretended not to notice as Crowley took a moment to clear his throat. “If you wouldn’t mind grabbing a glass of water, angel.”

Aziraphale grinned ear to ear like he’d won a prize. “As you wish.”

Then Aziraphale walked off into the kitchen. 

As Crowley’s body was slowly melting and seeping into the floor beneath him, the only appropriate response to _that_ interaction, several things were happening. Politicians were meeting, people were getting jobs, babies were being born, people were dying and divorcing and healing from all of the above. The world did, in fact, keep turning. But Crowley could not possibly attest to this fact because his world stopped and started with those three words.

Not the three words he needed to hear, mind you. It could still mean anything, as a very loud-and-screamy part of his brain reminded him. After all, the grandfather had said it to his grandson, meaning it a rather different way than the princess and pirate boy. He and Aziraphale were certainly not grandfatherly with each other (well, perhaps, two grandfathers together. They spent a fair bit of time making bad jokes and talking about the past. And they did raise Warlock together) but that didn’t mean they defaulted to princess & pirate boy. There were lots of ways to l- 

Well. To mean “As you wish.”

It could be a friend thing. Friendly gesture of friendship. Or perhaps they didn’t quite qualify for traditional friendship, because of the whole demon-angel thing. Perhaps they were a culture all to their own, only the two of them, no labels or guidebook to set how it was supposed to go. An interesting idea, but exhausting. It would be quite appreciated if, after 6000 years, they could put their relationship in terms Crowley could understand. The ambiguity made it difficult to know what to write on birthday cards. 

The ‘not really having been born’ thing also somewhat complicated it, but every once in a while Crowley thought to give Aziraphale a card, on whatever day of the year, and call it a birthday card, and on those occasions he never knew how to sign them.

_Your adversary, Crowley_? Too formal, and not strictly accurate, nor affectionate, as a proper birthday card should be. 

_Your neighbor in immortality? Your workplace associate? Your demon with benefits?_ No, that had implications.

While his mind was tumbling down that incredibly dangerous rabbit hole, Aziraphale came back with the glasses. He placed the glass of water in front of Crowley and nervously ran his thumb along the bottom of his own glass.

“Well,” Crowley said after taking a sip, “I suppose I should be getting back to mine.”

Aziraphale looked like he wanted to contest that, but nodded anyway. “I was thinking,” he said, looking somewhere above Crowley’s eyes, “maybe we could go out into the world tomorrow. Visit the beach or something.”

Crowley paused. He wasn’t sure he could take another day of - whatever this was. But it sounded nice, it really did. He nodded, and Aziraphale’s smile made it worth the buzzing worry in the back of his mind.

  
  
  


The ocean was supposed to be romantic, Aziraphale had been informed, but upon arrival he realized there was also something inherently sad about it. For a while, he had tried to keep up with his If-I-Keep-Flirting-Eventually-He-HAS-To-Get-The-Message plan by burying him in sand and letting his hands linger, insisting that Crowley wear sunscreen and glowing when he asked for help with his back, but quickly the melodrama of it all got to him. 

He had an ulterior motive to the beach, anyhow. He was, as has been proven, a rather intelligent angel, and thus had thought to experiment with the extents of Gabriel’s “blessing”. He’d tested one the night before, with the ‘as you wish’ move. It appeared he could get around the blessing by using codewords and references such as this. However, he could acknowledge that it didn’t hold the same impact that the actual words did. For proof, he need only consider Crowley’s face every time he looked at Aziraphale the last few days, wary, uncertain, unsure of what the angel was going to do next. Crowley hadn’t looked at him like that since- well, ever, actually. It was quite painful, to say the least. 

The plan seemed to be having the opposite effect. Rather than relieving Crowley the burden of his centuries of mixed signals, assuring him of exactly how Aziraphale felt, Crowley seemed more confused than ever, and oddly frightened. Aziraphale couldn’t even begin to comprehend why that might be, largely because the moment he attempted to, his stomach plummeted because what reasonable angel wants the object of their affections to feel _fear_ at their expressions?

So he had to be thinking of loopholes, ways to tell Crowley as clearly as possible. He tried to write it on a sheet of parchment, the best he had, but the ink in his pen dried out at the top of the ‘o’. When he tried again with a pencil, the lead broke on the ‘v’. Paint suddenly gained properties that made it slide right off the page. 

But he thought, maybe, the impermanence of the sand would let the words slip through, as though sand itself through fingers. Aziraphale looked up to see who might bear witness. They were sitting under a pier, several meters from where the high tide rested, drifting back and forth. Another couple, two women, were under the pier a bit away from them, but too wrapped up in each other to notice much, and the family building a sand castle was much too far. Crowley, for his part, was more sand than skin in terms of visibility, and he was resting with his head on a bundled up jacket he’d foolishly brought. For nothing but the aesthetic, it seemed. 

Slowly, he let his fingers sink themselves into the sand, and he set to work. He carved out an ‘I’, then the ‘l-o-v-e’. His heart started to trip on hope, fall out of rhythm, the blessing had never let him get this far before. Perhaps he really had found a way around it, at long last. He got the ‘y’ the ‘o’, and as he shakily added the tail on the ‘u’ he laughed, something entirely air and disbelief. At the sound, Crowley raised his eyebrows up above his sunglasses, but he didn’t turn back to look.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said in a voice that was oddly frantic, “Crowley, quickly, come look.”

Confused, Crowley sat up, “What is it, angel?”

But before he could look down at the message in the sand, a wave of twice Crowley’s height crashed in, travelling all the way up the shore, just to where Aziraphale’s words were. Just far enough to wash them away, no more, no less. 

To their right, the taller of the sapphic couple was chasing her shoes, which had been stolen by the miraculous wave. On their left, the poor family’s sand castle had been completely toppled. Suddenly, Aziraphale felt very, very sick.

Crowley was smiling, having been thoroughly drenched by the wave, a marvelous surprise from his perspective.

He laughed, “Angel, did you see that? Where’d that come from? Just when you think you’ve got Earth figured out, huh?”

Suddenly, he reached up touched his cheekbone, “Ah shit,” he said, “I’ve lost my sunglasses. Blasted wave. Hopefully none of these humans have noticed my eyes yet. We’d better get back to the Bently before they do. Oh, I almost forgot, what was it you wanted to show me, Angel?”  


Aziraphale forced a smile. “Nothing, my dear, nothing at all.”

Crowley paused, his face falling. “Aziraphale, I know when you’re lying. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale said with that trademark heavenly smile, bright and blinding, his eyes darting from place to place. Crowley took a step closer and took Aziraphale’s chin with his thumb and two fingers, gently tilting his face up so Crowley could see him, no sunglasses between them, just the bright yellow eyes he was supposed to be hiding searching Aziraphale’s face. “Nothing,” Aziraphale continued, but his face fell, giving up the pretense. “Just, a bit tired of the beach, I suppose. Perhaps we could go somewhere else instead? There’s a cliffside nearby I’ve heard is lovely at sunset. If we leave now we’d be right on time -”

“Angel, really, what’s wrong?”

Aziraphale stared up at Crowley and swallowed, his adam’s apple bumping up against Crowley’s fingers. He felt distinctly like he’d been caught. Well that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To be found out? To have Crowley catch him in the act of loving him?

Only he’d been caught for a crime he could never confess to. And Crowley would never lock him up (or down, as it were) on mere suspicion. Innocent until proven guilty. Friendly until proven otherwise. 

“Nothing, really.” Aziraphale smiled as Crowley raised his eyebrows at him. “Alright, perhaps not but I don’t want to talk about it, I can’t talk about it, could you just - come with me? Please?” Aziraphale heard how he sounded and winced, “If you want to, of course. No pressure.”

Crowley looked long and hard at Aziraphale, who kept hoping for him to break into a smile and crack a joke, ease the tension, but he didn’t. 

“Alright,” Crowley finally said. “Let’s go.”

  
  


On their way to the cliffside, the Bentley played its angriest, most anxious Queen, _Death On Two Legs, The Prophet’s Song, I’m Going Slightly Mad_. Aziraphale drummed his thumb on the side of the Bentley, off beat, the tempo far too fast. Crowley kept glancing over, concerned. 

Finally, Aziraphale pointed at a place to pull over, and Crowley did. 

“Angel, look -” he said, turning to face Aziraphale, but he was already out the door.

“Satan help me,” Crowley groaned, and started off after him.

Crowley tried to get Aziraphale to slow down, but he was marching forward towards the cliffside like he was on a warpath. His face was so intense, Crowley kept checking the angel’s side for the flaming sword. 

As they got closer, Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s elbow and pulled him forward faster.

“Angel,” Crowley said from behind him, “do you want to explain what this is about? Because I’m all for sunsets and all but it’s alright if we’re just a tiny bit late to this particular one. It’s not the end of the world. We stopped that, remember? We’ve got plenty of sunsets left to -”

Suddenly, Aziraphale stopped. They had reached the cliffside.

He had been right, of course. It was gorgeous.

Right in the middle, the sun on the horizon, was the yellow of Crowley’s eyes, coated in soft oranges and blushing pinks. It gave way to a purple sky, shadowing the dark sea. It was like being swallowed alive by color. 

“ _That_!” Aziraphale shouted, somewhat manic, pointing at the sky.

Crowley’s brow furrowed, “Angel, what -”

“I feel _that_ ! For _you_ ! Does that explain it? All of _that_ , everytime I see it, all I want to do is show you. All I want to do is share it with you, give it to you. All of _that. That’s_ what I feel. I don’t know how to make it any clearer, I’m sorry.”

Crowley stood there, frozen, his jaw slightly ajar, hands hidden in the pockets of his swim trunks. He blinked.

“Well?” Aziraphale stuttered. “Say something.”

Crowley took a moment, and when he spoke his voice was tight, “Aziraphale, I can’t just read your mind, would you please _tell_ me -”

“Oh for _heaven’s sake_ -” Aziraphale stomped forward, grabbed Crowley by the collar of his _stupid_ jacket, which he _never_ should have worn the _beach_ , and kissed him. 

It was, in the grand history of kisses that had occurred on the earth, not the best. In fact, it was probably not even in the top ten. But it was at least in the top thousand, and considering that approximately 100 billion people had been born to the earth, and Aziraphale saw on a gum commercial once that the average human has about 20,000 kisses in their life, this was pretty impressive.

Neither of them were thinking about these statistics in the moment, but I thought I would share them with you.

In the moment, it was mostly Crowley making a small noise of shock and then promptly melting into Aziraphale’s lead, his hands moving to Aziraphale’s waist of their own accord. It was mostly Aziraphale pulling him closer by the collar, his fingers barely grazing the skin of Crowley’s neck.

Before it could go any further, (read: as far as he wanted it to) Crowley stepped back. Then he stepped back again, putting as much distance between them as he could. The sun paused its descent to watch as they stood in tense silence. 

“With all due respect,” Crowley said, “what the _fuck_. Is that supposed to mean?”

“Crowley, I -”

“No.” Now it was Crowley’s turn to sound a bit unhinged. “Listen, listen to me. First it’s ‘ _You go too fast for me, Crowley’_ , and alright, fine. I mean, it’s been bloody what, 5000 years by then? Nearly 6000? But time’s weird for us, and you’re an angel, and I’m a demon, and also a _gentlemen_ , so it was _fine_ . I was perfectly willing to let you make the first move. Then, the _second_ shit gets heated, it’s ‘ _We’re not friends’_ and _‘I don’t even like you’_ which was, fucking _fantastic_ by the way, thanks for that load of _bullshit_ . Next thing, we’ve saved the world and I _blink_ and all of a sudden you’re inviting me into _bed_ with you and touching me like, _all the time_ which would be fine except I _know_ you don’t mean it the way I do, because you bloody well said so, didn’t you? And I know they teach you some fucked up stuff in heaven and their morals, frankly, leave much to be desired, but on _Earth_ , where _we_ live, it’s considered rude to play with people’s feelings. Because whether or not you believe it, I have been known to occasionally have some of those, and I made it _quite clear_ what mine were towards you so don’t play dumb, angel, it won’t be cute this time. Just -” Crowley gestured vaguely and then let his hands fall with a sigh. “Just leave me alone, Aziraphale. _Please._ ”

And with that, he ran his hands through his hair, let his shoulders drop, and slowly turned to walk back towards the Bently, leaving Aziraphale on the cliffside. 

He wanted to say _‘stop’_ or _‘I wasn’t playing’_ or _‘Tell me how I can fix it’_ but he could already feel the words choking to a stop in his throat, before he’d even formed them. What a blessing. 

At his sides, he clenched his fist. He may not have had full control over his hand, but he could make it do this. 

  
  


Aziraphale always hated head office. It looked like an apple store, which Crowley had taken him to once when his phone broke. But he decided this was worth the trip. Besides, the echo of his feet marching across the floor set an excellent tone to the scene that was about to play out. 

When Gabriel saw him, he went white enough to nearly camouflage into the wall behind him. 

“Aziraphale -” Gabriel stuttered, “I thought we made it clear after the - the hellfire incident - you don’t need to report to us anymore - no need to check in - you can just -”

Aziraphale punched him in the face. 

“I love him, you _bitch_!” 

Gabriel stumbled backwards and, quite unused to being punched, fell down to the ground. He looked up in terror, uncertain just _what_ he was looking at.

It took Aziraphale a moment to realize what he’d done. Not the punching Gabriel in the face. He was quite aware of that and had no negative reactions about that. After. What he had said. 

He thought back to centuries before, when Gabriel had first blessed him. How he’d had Aziraphale try to say it to him, to check. He couldn’t, before. 

Aziraphale smiled, smug, both an expression and emotion he had picked up from Crowley. 

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Aziraphale squatted down so he was eye to eye with Gabriel. “It means I’ve broken your little blessing. And what _that_ means,” he continued, smiling, lifting Gabriel’s chin up to look at the black eye forming, “is I don’t belong to you. Not anymore. Oh, don’t worry. I still belong to Her. And I belong to myself. And, maybe a little bit, if he forgives me, to _him_ . But most importantly,” Aziraphale smiled the same way he would to a child, “I do _not_ . _Belong_ . To _you_.”

And with that, he booped Gabriel on the nose, stood up, and walked away.

  
  


He found Crowley in Rome, in a restaurant that stood where that first one once did. Where they met for the first time after the death of Christ. Where they first ate together. 

Crowley raised his brows when he saw Aziraphale walk in, but he didn’t say anything. He tried not to move or make any acknowledgement of Aziraphale when he sat in the booth across from him, but Aziraphale saw his leg start bouncing. Aziraphale glanced over to check something and nearly smiled - his glass was water. 

“First of all, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley didn’t respond, but his shoulders tensed.

“I’m sorry for sending you mixed signals for all those centuries,” he continued. “It wasn’t fair to you. Just because I couldn’t have you like I wanted to didn’t mean it was okay to string you along like that. I’m sorry.”

Crowley froze. “Like you. . . like you _what_?”

“I’m also sorry for my behaviour the last few days. I was trying to get my point across, and I went about it all the wrong way. I didn’t think about how it all must look from your perspective. I’m sorry.”

“Aziraphale -”

“And secondly, I love you.”

“You - _what_?”

“I love you, Crowley.” And Aziraphale knew it was a terribly somber and serious conversation, but he couldn’t help breaking into a grin when he said it. He’d wanted to for so, so long. “I _have_ loved you, for _millennia_ . If you let me, I’ll _keep_ loving you. I realize I’ve mucked it all up, and I don’t blame you if that’s not something you want anymore, but after all this time, I had to tell you.”

“. . . Just to clarify, you mean -”

“I am _in_ love with you, Crowley. In a romantic fashion. In all of the fashions, really, but I rather suspect you knew about the others.”

“Oh.”

Aziraphale’s smile fell a bit. “Yes, well. I am, as you are, a gentleman, or at least I try to be, so I will leave you to your dinner, apologies for bothering you -”

“I love you too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah I -” Crowley coughed. “I suppose you knew, but I thought I ought to say it out loud. That was sort of the whole deal, wasn’t it?”

Aziraphale smiled. “It doesn’t count if you don’t say it.”

Crowley smiled, and Aziraphale smiled, and several Italians watched without trying very hard to hide it. 

“Say,” Aziraphale started, “would you, by chance, care to accompany me back to my flat?”

Crowley smiled, looking like himself for the first time in days. “Yes, angel, I rather think I would.”

  
  


The rumor that the average earthling has 20,000 kisses in their life in incorrect. The night Crowley and Aziraphale confessed their feelings, on which occasion they shared 100,000 kisses, is an outlier and should not have been counted. Oh, it was a long night of course, miraculously long. It takes quite a while to kiss a demon 100,000 times, and even longer if you stop between each and every one to whisper “I love you.”


End file.
